Let us face it - we all dread this kind of phone calls - when a caller asks you how you are and then continues - I have news for you. Bad news.
I got mine in December last year. My mom called me and said: Anatoly died in the fire today.
How do you say good-bye to somebody you pretty much knew all life, and you are thousand miles away?
You start ( Read more... )

When being in the Russian High School, we used to write the in class assignment called How I spent my summer on the first day of school. One was not allowed to write just anything. You were supposed to write about the remarkable deed like helping an elderly lady cross a busy street. The alternative was to write about some important lesson one ( Read more... )

I am big on books and stories about great Hasidic Rebbes. I am a fast reader, but somehow I read books about Rebbes very slowly. Every word, every sentence in them has so much wisdom that I savour every single moment.
Sometimes I feel though that these are just fairytales, that Rabbis like that could not possibly exist. Too good. Sometimes I am ( Read more... )